Broody Hen Thread!

[Dmontgomery]

My OEGB, Olivia likes to co brood with her Frizzle friend Lily usually only once a year. This year they hatched out six guinea fowl and she looked after them till they were 3 months old and three times the size of herself!

Have you left the eggs under your Henrietta? Then swap the chicks for the eggs. Hope things go good for you!

SUCCESS!!! It as dark enough that my wife put 5 new baby chicks under Henrietta at 8pm. She said she took out the eggs and started sliding the babies under, Henrietta just opened her wings and took all of them without a

peep!

 

[Hannahs Hollow]

Broody love...

 

[Dmontgomery]

My OEGB, Olivia likes to co brood with her Frizzle friend Lily usually only once a year. This year they hatched out six guinea fowl and she looked after them till they were 3 months old and three times the size of herself!

Have you left the eggs under your Henrietta? Then swap the chicks for the eggs. Hope things go good for you!

Henrietta has gone broody along with our other OEGB twice before, but not this year. The other hen is named Lilly, what a coincidence.
In the picture above (taken at 8:15) you have to look close to see a little yellow butt sticking out from under her head. She is simply too small to cover all 5 chicks while she is still drowsy. My wife just went out to check on them and said they were all squirming to get under their new mommy, but they are all pretty much hidden now.
New photo taken at 8:35

We know these are mix breed chicks but not sure what breeds yet. And we don't care, as long as she is happy. Hopefully all will go well tomorrow. Unfortunately we will be out of town until late tomorrow night. The one time in 3 years I have to be away from home for a whole day

 

[Hannahs Hollow]

We'll just make sure they're safe from predators weather and have a shallow bowl of water and took scratch and I'm sure she'll do the rest for you! There's such miraculous creatures aren't they? One of my Icelandic X brahmas hatched out 7 turkey poults for me!

 

[Dmontgomery]

About 5pm I set a chick feeder and waterer right outside her nesting box. She is on the back wall of a 16x16' coop so weather can't get to them. My only predator concern has been snakes but we got 3 Guineas in the past couple weeks, so hopefully they will handle that problem if it arises.
Thank you for the support this evening. I've been nervous about all this since Saturday. I shouldn't be. God created them to know exactly what to do and they were doing it long before I came in to the mix.

 

[microchick]

CONGRATULATIONS!

Dmontgomery. I'm a sucker for a happy ending!

 

[nchls school]

Hello everyone. This is Henrietta. [IMG
She is an OEGB obviously and my favorite girl. For reference her nesting box is 12"x16" inside. She has gone broody each year since we got her 3 years ago. Every spring she hatched out 3-4 chicks. When the timing has been right, we have slid a couple extra chicks under her late at night to add to the brood. She is the greatest little mother for 5 weeks, then...well you know. In spite of her size she is queen of the coop and nobody is brave enough to mess with her.
This year she hatched out 3 black bantam Cochins who are now about 16 weeks old and doing great. Unfortunately she went broody again on 8/1/16. Usually it's only once a year, but we let her have 3 eggs again. She's so dang cute I couldn't tell her no. We counted down the days, then count the past due days. I was worried all along about her sitting all day in 90+ degree weather, but she doesn't seem bothered by it at all.
We finally gave up last Thursday and started looking for chicks for her. We couldn't locate anyone within 30 miles with day old chicks but a local breeder had some incubating with an expected Saturday hatching. He called Saturday night and said they had just started pipping. We waited and waited. He finally texted back this morning that we could pick them up tonight.
Please send her your prayers and good wishes that she will accept these new babies and get off the nest for at least a few months.

Good luck and best wishes.

This is Frizzy who brooded dummy eggs for weeks. First I gave her four chicks-the next day three more-two days later four more. So now she is caring for eleven chicks she did not hatch.

 

[Dmontgomery]

Good luck and best wishes.

This is Frizzy who brooded dummy eggs for weeks. First I gave her four chicks-the next day three more-two days later four more. So now she is caring for eleven chicks she did not hatch.

That is adorable!

24 hour update:
Mother and babies are doing fine. We didn't get back home until almost 7:30. I worried about her all day but I should know better by now. She's great. It was too dark in the coop to get a good picture with my antique cell phone. I will try to post a picture of them all in the morning. Thanks everyone.

 

[Mommy 2 Wee Ones]

A couple weeks ago, I posted about Miss Ramin, our Banty hen going broody again. She hatched out her first set the first week of May. I did not realize she went broody again till the 12th of Aug., so on Sunday we moved her and the 12 of 20 eggs into the house. The 8 eggs that were around her were ice cold, and since I did not know how long they had been out, I tossed them. From my calculations, I expected chicks on Sept 2nd or 3rd. But the chicks had other plans, on Monday night I hear Peep Peep Peep, and a wet baby climbed out from under Mama. Tues, I see a dark gray chick with a off white chest, poked it's head out, and today a yellow chipmunk was peeking out of Mama's wing.




Chick 1 is the black on - she is so tiny, could be Banty size. 8/29
Chick 2 is the gray with a off white chest. 8/30



Chick 3 is yellow and peeking out of Mama's wing. 8/31

9 more eggs to go. Chicks doing well, eating drinking, climbing over Mama and each other.
Once she is done hatching out eggs, I will moved her to the oversize cardboard box. I was going to move her this week, before chicks started hatching. I had her in the oversize box for her first hatch in May, she never got off the eggs the whole time, not even to go potty in the far corner. This is her 5th hatch in 4 years, and she never moves off the nest.



These are Ramin's chicks from May hatch. Nicole (banty size, feathered feet), Chubby (poofy head)





That black chick is the big chick in front, in the grass.
Baby Picture (L - R) Stormy, Starlight, Midnight
Older Picture - Midnight (front), Starlight (left), Stormy (right)

 

[microchick]

They are so adorable! My Lil'girl is sitting on 8 eggs that are hopefully OEGB eggs. At least I hope they are. Funny story. We have friends who have three OEGB hens and a little Platinum Winged OEGB rooster. They are old and these friends have been looking for younger OEGB eggs as one of the old hens goes broody once a year. But it's hard to hatch infertile eggs. I told our friends that the next time I had a hen go broody, I'd do my best to find OEGB eggs for her to hatch and they could choose from fledglings if they wanted any. When Lil'girl went broody, I left three eggs from my girls under her and went to work knowing I had 24 hours to find OEGB eggs. I was lucking out until I remembered that more than once I had been driving by or stopped at one of our Amish neighbor's house and had seen a few diminutive roosters leading hens around and diminutive hens leading chicks around. Desperate I drove down to his house. These are really nice people but I get such a kick out of them. I asked him about his chickens and well, yeah, a guy had given him a OEGB rooster because he wanted him to raise fighting birds for him but he didn't want to do that so he had this rooster and now they were mostly OEGB chickens........in the mean time his boy went into the barn and came out with 8 small white eggs that he gave me to. I couldn't say no. They were so happy to help me out. So I brought these little white jewels home and tucked them under Lil'girl who graciously settled herself down upon them. I had no idea how far along they were and started to feel a real surge of panic. So I candled at 6 days and saw that the air chamber was pretty much on line with my three eggs and pretty much where they should be at 6 days.

Lordy I hope fuzzy little OEGBs hatch out of those little white eggs in about two weeks.